Since the beginning of the year, many areas in Greater Accra Region have reported intermittent power outages referred in local parlance as “dumsor”, which is the erratic supply of electricity to households and businesses. The State-owned utility provider responsible for the distribution of power to consumers, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has denied a return of dumsor as the month of March witnessed the most incidences of erratic supply with spill over into April. According to ECG, the outages were due to ‘maintenance issues’ with an intermediary between the producers and ECG.
Meanwhile, another State-owned entity operating in the power value chain, the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has reported ECG to the sector minister for what it says is its failure to comply with load management instructions from the framework that controls operations of players in the value chain that includes generators, distribution companies and bulk customers. GRIDCo noted repeated instances where ECG operations personnel failed to follow these instructions, an action that continues to pose a significant threat to the stability of the power grid. In a memo dated March 28, 2024 addressed to the sector Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku-Prempeh by GRIDCo CEO Ing Ebenezer Kofi Essienyi which was sighted by ceditalk.com, the national system control centre (or “SCC”) routinely communicates load management directives to ECG but they are unheeded.
The way Ghana’s electricity system works is such that power is generated by State-owned VRA and Bui Power Authority responsible for 55% and 8% of generation respectively, and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) which contribute a total of 36% of electricity generation capacity in the country. The power is then transmitted by GRIDCo at 161 kV and sells to ECG, Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) and Enclave Power Company; ECG distributes power in southern Ghana while NEDCo distributes to the northern part of the country including the Bono and Ahafo areas as well as 5 regions in the north. Enclave Power is the only privately-owned electricity distribution company operating in the Tema Free Zones enclave serving about 50 industrial customers.
However, from the GRIDCo engineering stand point, due to non-compliance of load management directives by ECG the system would trigger the following;
- The operation of Automatic Frequency Load Shedding (AFLS) relays;
- SCC will disconnect feeders serving bulk customers to correct the decaying frequency.
Therefore, by not adhering to load management instructions, GRIDCo believes that ECG has violated two key industry regulations LI 1934 and the National Electricity Grid Code. It called on the Minister to intervene in ensuring “cooperation from ECG with respect to load management operations”. ECG is the largest distributor which covers approximately 90% of retail sales. It has over 3.8 million customers (2019) in 6 operational regions across the country.